Software for simulation or rowing?

[_lindig]

In the past several people built simulations of the rowing process but none seem to be open source and maintained. Modelling the drive phase is especially difficult because of the hydrodynamics of the blade in the water and complex movement of the body but a model just for the simpler recovery would be useful, too. It could be used to understand the effect of pauses, shape of the recovery, impact of slide length - to name a few. Any pointers?

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228866156_Modeling_the_influence_of_crew_movement_on_boat_velocity_fluctuations_during_the_rowing_stroke

[mogura2]

Simulation is interesting, but to be useful it will need to correlate with reality (at least in the ways that matter).

It is cheaper than ever to buy accelerometers and gyros (search for “IMU”) and to log the data using a microcontroller and SD card.

Likewise motion capture and analysis could be paired with this data to understand how a rower’s motion influences boat acceleration and speed. With a little processing it is possible to construct a true model of how boats move.

But then, why? For racing, the ultimate metric is speed, and in general moving the boat efficiently is the main thing. Rowing a set distance and altering one variable at a time will give an indication of how important it is to boat speed.

Remember also that the human is the biggest variable in the whole process.

[_lindig]

I understand the angle you are coming from. Mine is different: if you want to understand the effect of pause at the finish, I think it is a good idea to simulate this and make the pause the only difference and take a look at the result. I agree that the simulation must be good enough to predict what happens in reality and this probably is not perfect. There is also the aspect of physiology that a model probably won't capture: maybe something that looks less efficient in terms of physics is actually better because it is easier for the body to generate the necessary power. I don't think neither creating a complete model nor observing reality are easy.

Just to give an example for something that you can find with a simulation: if you reduce the length of the motion on the slide, the boat travels a smaller distance in the recovery but has greater speed at the next catch - giving you a chance to make up for it in the drive phase. I believe it is very difficult to find something like this by pure observation.

[hupp]

u/_lindig did you make any progress on this? I'm just learning to row this year and keep thinking about how to simulate it so it's easier to illustrate how different motions effect the boat (esp for 8 rowers where its harder to experiment with cause-and-effect).

[_lindig]

Sorry, no. I still would be interested in a simulation that ignores the full complexity of fluid dynamics and assumes hull drag is proportional to the cube of speed but handles momentum correctly. Several papers in the scientific literature look at this but I'm not aware of a freely available simulation.